


This All or Nothing Way of Loving

by bexpls



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/M, Panic Attacks, canonical fridging of a female character, i don't like it any more than you, post-Creed of the Kromon, some injury detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 06:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexpls/pseuds/bexpls
Summary: 'He’s too all-or-nothing, that’s his problem. He’s a mild-mannered farmer, no, he’s an intricately trained killer, no wait, a husband, no, a killer. He looks at L’da and she’s in pain so she must die. No second thoughts, no getting the Doctor so he can help, just straight, the gun is in his hand and he must use it on her.'Short post-Creed of the Kromon fic for not much reason at all really.Contains spoilers for Creed of the Kromon, The Next Life, and Terror Firma. Possible mild spoilers for all the audios in between, too.Title from the Lewis Capaldi song 'Someone You Loved' which I may or may not have been listening to on repeat for the past three days.





	This All or Nothing Way of Loving

**Author's Note:**

> I'm experimenting with writing styles, so if you have a criticism like 'this is genuinely unreadable' I would honestly like to hear it. As long as you're not, you know, a dick about it.

The planet is entirely covered with snow, which initially is very unsettling. As precipitation goes, it’s one of the most lethal, says the Doctor. A silent killer, that’s the phrase he uses. It creeps up on you, falls without sound or warning. Rain can be deadly, when there’s too much of it, but it’s a second-hand slaughterer, the wealthy businessman who gives commands but doesn’t stray from the security of his lawyers and alibis. It’s the floods, the aftereffects, that’s what kills you. No one ever died from having rain falling on them. But snow isn’t afraid of getting its hands dirty. If you’re sleeping and it starts snowing in the night and it covers you, you’re dead, suffocated under the pretty white stuff.

The Doctor reels all that off like he read it in a poem. And since this is the first time C’rizz has ever seen snow, it isn’t exactly reassuring.

There’s nothing they can do about it, anyway, says the Doctor after Charlotte tells him off. The Kro’ka sent them here, so they don’t have any choice except to stay here until they’re allowed out.

That part is horribly reminiscent of the Kromon AlphaSphere, but C’rizz doesn’t say anything about it.

It’s night, past midnight by the position of the moon (so the Doctor tells them), and the Doctor wants to explore. Not that there appears to be much to explore. The ground could be made of sand, gravel, or diamonds for all they can see of it underneath the snow, and they’re surrounded by mountains made of scree and frost on every side. There’ll be civilisation somewhere, says the Doctor; the planet wouldn’t be here otherwise. C’rizz starts to ask what he means, but at that the Doctor falls silent and begins walking away from them. Charlotte apologises. He’s been rather out of sorts lately, she says. He isn’t trying to be mean. He’s just in a bad situation and hasn’t quite worked out how to make the best of it yet. Sorry.

C’rizz shakes his head, says it’s fine, he understands. Because he does. He isn’t in the best situation either, and he hasn’t worked out how to make the best of it yet, either. And, like the Doctor, he isn’t being very nice about it.

Not that he doesn’t have an excuse about that, but he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Charlotte pats his hand and says that they’d better follow the Doctor. A person could get lost in all this, she says. She’s right: since arriving on the planet, it’s started to snow heavily. If it’s possible, the white flakes on his bare skin are colder than the air itself. It’s hammering down, turning the landscape into a blur of monochrome watercolour. He can just about see the Doctor’s silhouette stalking off into the distance. Charlotte takes his arm and they follow him.

It ends up that it’s too dark and too snowy to walk for much longer. They find a circle of rocky outcrops that shield the ground from the snow, and decide that it’s as good a place as any to camp down for the night. At least they’ll be offered some protection from the snow itself, if not from the freezing cold that accompanies it. The prospect isn’t thrilling, especially since all that he’s wearing is the tattered remains of the uniform that the Kromon made him wear. His exoskeleton provides a little warmth; or rather, prevents him from getting frostbite. When he’s lying on the icy ground, his arms and legs feel as though they’re about to fall off.

But the Doctor gives him his long coat, saying that he himself won’t get too cold. C’rizz wraps it around himself and curls up underneath the smallest ledge he can find. Close enough to Charlotte and the Doctor that he can find them if something goes wrong. Far enough away from them that they won’t see if anything happens to him.

Which, inevitably, it does.

It’s the first night without L’da in the world, that’s why. The first night since she died. The first night since he killed her.

He almost wishes that Charlotte hadn’t recovered. Almost, obviously, Charlotte’s great, but he would feel much better if he hadn’t known that the process was reversible. Hadn’t known that L’da could have been saved if he’d just waited for five fucking minutes instead of choosing the most obvious option.

Then again, it isn’t right that he should feel better. He should feel horrible, sick, drowning in guilt. Which he does, which he is.

In extremis, he reverted to his basic programming. To kill. Person becomes victim, becomes weapon in his hand, becomes blind faith, becomes no other option, becomes murder, becomes dead. Now, that makes him think it isn’t his fault, that it’s the fault of Guidance and the Foundation. Then he remembers that Guidance is dead so it can’t be his fault. C’rizz is alive and it is C’rizz’s hands that killed L’da, and that is whose fault it is.

He’s too all-or-nothing, that’s his problem. He’s a mild-mannered farmer, no, he’s an intricately trained killer, no wait, a husband, no, a killer. He looks at L’da and she’s in pain so she must die. No second thoughts, no getting the Doctor so he can help, just straight, the gun is in his hand and he must use it on her. A rescue mission turned into an assassination. An assassination turned into a mercy killing. A mercy killing turned into an unnecessary act of pure violence for the sake of it.

His thoughts are going around in circles and dragging him in with them, like a whirlpool. They smother him into sleep.

 

He wakes up before the sun has risen. It was a dream. A bloody blend of memory and prayers and rituals, half-remembered fragments of old dreams, conjured up fantasies about his future travels, if he’s going to have any at all. In the centre of them all stands L’da, like a goddess or a matriarch or something worse. At least in them, she looks like she should. Pale purple skin, a touch darker than the average. Smooth, muscular from a life on a farm. Eutermesan, through and through. No trace of the Kromon. But she’s dead, with blood gushing from the bullet wounds that penetrated her exoskeleton. Her eyes are fixed on his, asking why, pleading why, and she can’t speak because of the blood that is bubbling up from her throat.

That image is what finally wakes him. Or rather, the physical pain that starts when he sees it is what wakes him.

It crushes his chest so much he can’t breathe, and he gasps, clawing away the Doctor’s coat and scrabbling out from underneath the ledge so he can breathe some fresh air. He squeezes his eyes shut, realises that won’t help. Concentrate on the sky instead. On the snowflakes that are so bright he can see them against the black cover of night. Something else. Something that isn’t his dead wife.

His heart is pounding so hard it’s going to break his ribs. Pause, think. What do you do when this happens, C’rizz? Do you remember what I said? In through the nose, out through the mouth, that’s what Guidance taught him when this thing started happening, right at the beginning. The first being he ever killed, except livestock, was one of the elderly monks. He was dying of a degenerative illness and wanted to be put out of his misery. Guidance thought it would be a good practice kill. Knife to the chest, very simple. No stealth required, no combat. Just the pure, unadulterated act of murder. The last part of the training.

Afterwards, he thought he was going to die. It took Guidance several minutes to calm him down, to stop his heart from forcing its way through his mouth. Guidance told him not to worry. It’s a fairly common reaction amongst the young initiates. The act of taking life is not something to be taken lightly. I would be more concerned if you were completely fine with it. That would have revealed a much darker side to you.

A side that C’rizz still isn’t convinced doesn’t exist.

It got better with every kill, until the feelings stopped altogether. And after he left the Church of the Foundation, he thought he would never have to go through it again.

Evidently he was wrong.

The bands of pain around his chest loosen finally, until he can breathe again, but it still hurts. He rolls over onto his front and pushes himself up into a kneeling position, leaning forwards on his hands. He feels like he is going to be sick, or would be if he’d eaten anything in the past forty-eight hours. The Doctor said that he and Charlotte were just finding food wherever they could. On Eutermes, it had been maggots or nothing. They chose nothing.

He looks over at the Doctor and Charlotte, sleeping practically on top of one another, both wrapped in Charlotte’s coat. A survival technique, or something more?

He wishes L’da was with them. If they managed to save her, she would have come too, he’s certain. Or maybe if she was alive, he wouldn’t have wanted to come in the first place. She was what was tying him to Eutermes, after the deaths of the rest of his family. If she was alive, he would have stayed there.

Now, thanks to the Foundation, he can’t even escape the memory of her.

_I’m always here, my love._

I know, says C’rizz quietly. I know.

Along with the rest of you.


End file.
